White House rules out 14th Amendment option on debt ceiling

12/6/12 5:15 PM EST

White House press secretary Jay Carney said that the Obama administration does not believe they can unilaterally raise the nation's borrowing limit under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

"This administration does not believe that the 14th Amendment gives the president the power to ignore the debt ceiling -- period," Carney told reporters Thursday.

Congressional Republicans are threatening another standoff over raising the nation's debt ceiling — hoping to use congressional approval of the borrowing limit as a chip in the larger standoff with President Obama over debts and deficits.

Some legal scholars believe that the 14th Amendment — which affirms the validity of the public debt of the United States — supersedes the statuary borrowing limit set by Congress.

But the White House disagrees — saying that their legal interpretation is that only Congress can lift the borrowing limit.

"I think this is actually consistent with what we said last year," he said. "I think there was a period where this was under discussion and maybe the quote you found was before it had been looked at in that level of detail. But I believe when this was under discussion at the time, this is where we landed."

Obama has said that he is not interested in another negotiation with congressional Republicans over the debt limit.

"The only thing the debt ceiling is good as a weapon for is destroying your credit rating," Obama told a group of business leaders Thursday. "I will not play that game."

UPDATE: Still, some leading congressional Democrats believe it’s a tool the White House would be able to use. “I’ve always thought it was an option,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters on Thursday.